Food and non-food products, including produce, snack foods, cheese and the like have long been packaged in containers such as pouches, bags, or lidded trays or formed webs made from various thermoplastic materials such as polyethylene, polypropylene, or polyester (PET). These containers can be formed from a web or webs of thermoplastic material on packaging equipment, using various packaging processes, at a processing/packaging facility. Such equipment and processes includes horizontal form/fill/seal (HFFS), vertical form/fill/seal (VFFS), thermoforming/lidstock, and continuous horizontal packaging (sometimes referred to as Flow-wrap). In each case, the product is manually or automatically placed in a pouch, bag, formed web, tray, etc., the filled container is optionally vacuumized or gas flushed, and the mouth of the container is hermetically or non-hermetically sealed to close and finish the package.
Opening of the finished package (i.e. opening with the use of tools such as scissors or knives) can provide access to the product by the consumer.
Common in the industry is the use of pressure sensitive adhesive to provide a reclosability feature to a package. However, based on the position of the adhesive relative to the package, the adhesive can sometimes be contaminated by the contained product before the package is opened, or once the package is opened, when product is removed from the package and comes in contact with the adhesive. This phenomenon can compromise the reclosability of the package. Also, the performance of the adhesive can sometimes be compromised at refrigerated conditions, or in the presence of grease or moisture caused by the packaging of greasy or wet foods.
Also common in the industry is the use of plastic zipper closures; press-to-close or slide zippers, interlocking closures; reclosable fasteners with interlockable fastener elements; and interlocking rib and groove elements having male and female profiles; interlocking alternating hook-shaped closure members, and hook and loop fasteners; fasteners employing self-engageable male fastener elements; fasteners utilizing interference fit, and the like. These features provide reclosability, and in some cases may provide an easy-open feature to the package.
There is need in the marketplace for a package, and methods of packaging involving e.g. an HFFS, VFFS, thermoforming/lidstock, or continuous horizontal packaging process, that can be used in a manner that requires little or no modification to the packager's packaging equipment, while providing a manually (i.e. by hand, without the need for tools such as scissors or knives) openable and easy to reclose feature, optionally while maintaining hermeticity of the package when made, and optionally without the use of pressure sensitive adhesive and the like.
There is also a need in the marketplace for an assembly that can be anchored to a processor's packaging material or web of choice to provide easy-open and reclosable functionalities to a package made from that web/assembly combination with only relatively minor modifications to the processor's packaging material, packaging process or equipment.
The present invention relates to a package, and methods of making the package, which package is manually openable and reclosable, i.e. can be opened and reclosed a number of times, and adapted to package non-food products; food products such as e.g. produce, snack foods, cheese, luncheon meat, sausage, culinary nuts, trail mix, etc; medical or pharmaceutical products; or other items that benefit from being packaged in an easy-open/reclosable package. The package optionally maintains a hermetic seal until the package is opened.